Don’t allow this damning report to gather dust too

Your editorial in The Sunday Times of January 21 on the subject ‘Corruption monster gobbling all’– which referred to the recent COPE parliamentary report – concluded with the line, “It may make some noises, but it is to the country’s detriment that the report will probably end up gathering dust just on top of the Auditor General’s report.” The COPE report was produced by Wijedasa Rajapakse who is a member of the government and the fact that this report was allowed to be available to the public, clearly indicates that President Rajapaksa’s government has shown its determination in tackling this monster.

Please do not allow it to ‘gather dust just on top of the Auditor General’s Report’. Chathuri Dissanayake and Natasha Gunaratne who wrote the article ‘Shocking Plunder of Public Funds’ have performed a service to the nation by highlighting the damning findings in the report showing how public funds are robbed by a few people with influence.

What is most shocking is that “according to the report, the sale had taken place on unaudited accounts and thereby it was not possible to enter into any kind of shared transactions.” The report also said the accounts appeared to have been surreptitiously and intentionally adjusted. This is a terrible indictment on professionals.

In a previous letter, I mentioned that The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 was enacted in the USA, after the mammoth fraud that was discovered after the ENRON debacle, which sent the largest international audit firm into liquidation and those responsible to jail. I think we have sufficient provision in our Company Law to deal with this kind of fraud.

By P.S. Mahawatte, Colombo 5.